


A moment of quiet

by Hermit9



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Coffee, F/M, Prison, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 09:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6560869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original prompt : Karen visits Castle in prison for the trial and comes bearing a gift: coffee</p>
            </blockquote>





	A moment of quiet

It scares her sometimes. How normal it starts to feel, going through two body pat downs, metal detectors, walking in hallways lined with men holding military rifles. How she’s learning to spot the nervous ones, the ones she needs to keep in her line of sight, the ones whose badge numbers she needs to write down. Half of the numbers are wrong, or invalid, on a good day. She blames herself and her nerves ; Matt and Foggy pretend to believe her, the other option is not spoken aloud.

They’ve set him up in a private counsel room, Would have left him in a windowless solitary hole if they could have. He has has chains around his wrists, his waist, ankles, around his neck. The restraints are too short, he has to hunch over to release the pressure on the bones of his neck. It doesn’t suit him, she decides, the curled and submissive look instead of the straight back, broad shoulders and head high posture. She makes a mental note to talk to Foggy about that. There’s a stationary camera in the corner of the room, flat black cover but she can see the faint glow of the red light. Recording. That scares her too, how naturally it comes to her to block the line of sight as she sits down. So that if her fingers brushes the back of his hand, no one is the wiser.

  
“Good morning Mr. Castle.”

“Good Morning.” His voice is still rough, his breath short on account of the broken ribs. But he has regained some color overall and the deep set bruises around his eyes have started to turn into a kaleidoscope of sickly colors.

“You look better.”

“I look like hell warmed over, counselor.” There’s the ghost of laughter in his voice this time, like an after image of something he used to know how to do.

Karen takes the corrugated paper tray from her lap and put it on the far side of the table, freeing the two coffee cup and putting them on the table between them. She hesitates for a moment then pushes one towards him. The metal table is cold, the cheap take-out cup is barely tepid, but his skin is warm when their fingers brush for a few heartbeats too long.

“Why the hesitation?” he asks, making no move towards the cup, refusing to break eye contact.

“Mine has some _lawyer's helper_ in it for my nerves. Yours is black,” she says.

“Ah.” Flat, an acknowledgement of facts. “Breach of protocol, no?”

Her eyes are soft and her smile is kind, when she answers, just above a whisper but with real anger, “The protocol can bite me."

He nods, once, and bends at the waist to bring the coffee to his lips despite the chains. They sit quietly, enjoying the caffeine and the company if not the drinks themselves. Stretching the quiet bubble around them until the guards walk in to guide him to his seat in the courtroom, lined with ballistic glass and she has to rejoin the rest of his legal team. But it cannot last and the armed men break the silence with their boots and their orders and their nervous shuffle. They most certainly miss it, as they are leading him out of the door.

“Honey. I like honey in my coffee”.

And then they are gone and she is alone in the cold metal clad room.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and comments more then welcome :-)


End file.
